Two major limitations of existing audiometric newborn hearing screening programs are their inability to detect forms of deafness that are not expressed at birth and the low compliance with obtaining recommended audiologic confirmation and/or follow-up. Molecular genetic tests on blood spots from all newborns will identify those at risk for the most frequent causes of late-onset hearing loss and to add these infants to the group who should receive continued audiologic monitoring.

Two major limitations of existing audiometric newborn hearing screening programs are their inability to detect forms of deafness that are not expressed at birth and the low compliance with obtaining recommended audiologic confirmation and/or follow-up. Molecular genetic tests on blood spots from all newborns will identify those at risk for the most frequent causes of late-onset hearing loss and to add these infants to the group who should receive continued audiologic monitoring.

The specific aims of this project are to:

Demonstrate the utility of detecting four potentially important causes of delayed onset hearing loss by molecular tests at birth, which may be missed by current audiometric screening tests.

Document the frequency, clinical and genetic characteristics of hearing loss associated with each condition.

Dried blood spots (DBS) on filter paper will be obtained and be used for this project with parental informed consent from 6,000 newborn infants at approximately 25 hospitals. Pediatrix Screening, a subsidiary of Pediatrix Medical Group with long experience in high throughput neonatal testing, will perform genetic testing on the samples. The four genetic and environmental forms of deafness to be studied include:

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Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00511381